The Sot-Weed Factor (14 page)

"I cannot fathom it," Ebenezer admitted. "All this talk of sextants and parallels leaves me faint."

"The truth was," Charles said, "Penn had sworn to his Society for Trade that his grant included the headwaters of the Bay, and he was resolved to have't. When all else failed he fell to plotting with his friend the Duke of York next door and when to my distress the Duke took the throne as James II, Penn conjures him up that specter of a
hactenus inculia
again and gets himself granted the whole Delaware territory the which was neither his to take nor James's to grant, but clearly mine.

"Matters reached such a pass that though I feared to leave the Province to my enemies for e'en a minute, I had no recourse but to sail for London in 1684 to fight Penn's intrigues. Now for some time I had been falsely accused of allowing smugglers to defraud the King's port-revenues and of failing to assist the royal tax collectors, and had even paid a fine for't. No sooner do I weigh anchor for London than my kinsman George Talbot in St. Mary's allows a rascally beast of a tax collector to anger him and stabs the knave dead. 'Twas a fool's act, and my enemies seized on't at once. Against all justice they refuse to try him in the Province, but instead deliver him to Effingham, then governor of Virginia -- who, by the way, later plotted with the Privy Council to have the whole of Maryland granted to himself! -- and 'twas all I could manage to save his neck. Shortly afterwards
another
customs officer is murthered, and though 'twas a private quarrel, my enemies put the two together to color me a traitor to the Crown. Penn, meanwhile, commenced a
quo warranto
suit against my entire charter, and with his friend on the throne I doubt not what would have been the result: as't happened, the folk of England just then pressed their own
quo warranto,
so to speak, against King James, and Penn's game was spoilt, for the nonce, by the revolution."

"I cannot tell how relieved I am to hear it!" Ebenezer declared.

" 'Twas my loss either way," sighed Charles. "When James was on the throne my enemies called me disloyal to him; when he went in exile, and William landed in England, all they cared to remember was that both James and I were Catholics. 'Twas then, at the worst possible time, my fool of a deputy governor sees fit to declare to the Assembly his belief in the divine right of kings and, folly of follies, makes Maryland proclaim officially the birth of James's Catholic son!"

"I tremble for you," Ebenezer said.

"Naturally, the instant William took the throne I sent word to the Maryland Council to proclaim him. But whether from natural causes or, as I suspect, from the malice of my enemies, the messenger died on shipboard and was buried at sea, and his commission with him, so that Maryland remained silent even after Virginia and New England had proclaimed. I sent a second messenger at once, but the harm was done, and those who were not crying 'Papist!' were crying 'Jacobite!' On the heels of this misfortune, in 1689 my enemies in England caused me to be outlawed in Ireland on charges of committing treason there against William in James's behalf -- though in sooth I'd never in my life set foot on Irish soil and was at the very moment in England expressly to fight the efforts of James and Penn to snatch Maryland from me! To top all, in March of the same year they spread a rumor over Maryland that a great conspiracy of nine thousand Catholics and Indians have invaded the Province to murther every Protestant in the land: the men sent to Mattapany, at the mouth of the Potomac, are told of massacres at the river's head and, rushing there to save the day, find the settlers arming against such massacres as they've heard of in Mattapany! For all my friends declare 'tis naught but a sleeveless fear and imagination, the whole Province is up in arms against the Catholics."

"Blind! Blind!"

" 'Twas no worse than the antiPapism here in London," said Charles. "My only pleasure in this dark hour was to see that lying Quaker Penn himself arrested and jailed as a Jesuit!"

"I'faith, it cheers me, too!"

"Naught now remained but for the conspirators to administer the
coupe de gr
â
ce.
This they did in July, led by the false priest Coode. He marches on St. Mary's with an armed force, promotes himself to the rank of general, and for all he'd used to be a Catholic himself, shouts
Papist
and
Jesuit
until the whole city surrenders. The President and Council flee to Mattapany, where Coode besieges 'em in the fort till they give up the government to him. Then, calling themselves the Protestant Associators, they beg King William to snatch the government for himself!"

"Surely King William hanged him!" Ebenezer said. Charles, who had been talking as rapidly and distractedly as though telling a painful rosary, now seemed really to notice his visitor for the first time since commencing the history.

"My dear Poet. . ." He smiled thinly. "William is at war with King Louis: in the first place, for aught anyone knows the war might spread to America, and he is most eager to gain control of all the colonies against this possibility. In the second place, war is expensive, and my revenues could help to pay his soldiers. In the third place, he holds the crown by virtue of an antiPapist revolution, and I am a Papist. In the fourth place, the government of Maryland was imploring him to rescue the Province from the oppression of Catholics and Indians --"

"Enough!" cried Ebenezer. "I fear me he snatched it! But by what legal right --"

"Ah, 'twas wondrous legal," said Charles. "William instructed the Attorney General to proceed against my charter by way of
scire facias,
but reflecting afterwards on the time such litigation would require, and the treasury's dire need for food, and the possibility of the Court's finding in my favor, he asks Chief Justice Holt to find him a way to snatch my Maryland with less bother. Holt ponders awhile till he recalls that
jus est id quod principi placet,
and then declares, in all solemnity, that though 'twould be better the charter were forfeited in a proper inquisition, yet since no inquisition hath been held, and since by the King's own word the matter is urgent, he thinks the King might snatch him the government on the instant and do his investigating later."

"Why," said Ebenezer, " 'tis like hanging a man today and trying his crime tomorrow!"

Charles nodded. "In August of 1691 milord Sir Lionel Copley became the first royal governor of the crown colony of Maryland," he concluded. "My rank fell from that of count palatine, with power of life and death over my subjects, to that of common landlord, entitled only to my quit-rents, my port duty of fourteen pence per ton on foreign vessels, and my tobacco duty of one shilling per hogshead. The Commissioners of the Privy Seal, be't said to their credit, disputed Holt's decision, and in fact when the
quo warranto
was instigated the allegations against me fell to pieces for lack of evidence, and no judgment was found. But of course 'twas precisely because he foresaw this that William had leaped ere he looked: you may depend on't he held fast to Maryland, and clasps her yet like a lover his mistress; for
Possession is nine points of the law
in any case, and with a king 'tis parliament, statute book, and courtroom all together! 'Tis said in sooth,
A king's favor is no inheritance;
and
A king promiseth all, and observeth what he will."

"And," added Ebenezer,
"He who eats the King's goose shall choke on the feathers."

"How?" Charles demanded angrily. "D'you twit me, fellow? Think thee Maryland was e'er King William's goose?"

"Nay, nay!" Ebenezer protested. "You misread the saying! 'Tis meant to signify merely, that
A great dowry is a bed full of brambles,
don't you know:
A great man and a great river are ill neighbors,
or
A king's bounty is a mixed blessing."

"Enough, I grasp it. So, then, there is your Maryland, fellow. Think you 'tis fit for a
Marylandiad?"

"I'faith," replied Ebenezer, " 'twere fitter for a Jeremiad! Ne'er have I encountered such a string of plots, cabals, murthers, and machinations in life or literature as this history you relate me!"

Charles smiled. "And doth it haply inspire your pen?"

"Ah God, what a dolt and boor must Your Lordship think me, to burst upon you with grand notions of couplet and eulogy! I swear to you I am sorry for't: I shall leave at once."

"Stay, stay," said Charles. "I will confess to you, this
Marylandiad
of yours is not without interest to me."

"Nay," Ebenezer said, "you but chide me for punishment."

"I am an old man," Charles declared, "with small time left on earth --"

"Heav'n forbid!"

"Nay, 'tis clear truth," Charles insisted. "The prime of my life, and more, I've laid on the altar of a prosperous, well-governed Maryland, which was given me in trust by my dear father, and him by his, to husband and improve, and which I dreamed of handing on to my son a richer, worthier estate for my having ruled it."

"Marry, I am in tears!"

"And now in my old age I find this shan't be," Charles continued. "Moreover, I am too aged and infirm to make another ocean passage and so must die here in England without laying eyes again upon that land as dear to my heart as the wife of my body, and whose abducting and rape stings me as e'er did Helen's Menelaus."

"I can bear no more!" wept Ebenezer, blowing his nose delicately into his handkerchief.

"I have no authority," Charles concluded, "and so can no longer confer dignities and titles as before. But I declare to you this, Mr. Cooke: hie you to Maryland; put her history out of mind and look you at her peerless virtues. Study them; mark them well! Then, if you can, turn what you see to verse; tune and music it for the world's ears! Rhyme me such a rhyme, Eben Cooke; make me this Maryland, that neither time nor intrigue can rob me of; that I can pass on to my son and my son's son and all the ages of the world! Sing me this song, sir, and by my faith, in the eyes and heart of Charles Calvert and of every Christian lover of Beauty and Justice, thou'rt in sooth Poet and Laureate of the Province! And should e'er it come to pass -- what against all hope and expectation I nightly pray for to Holy Mary and all saints -- that one day the entire complexion of things alters, and my sweet province is once again restored to her proprietor, then, by Heav'n, I shall confer you the title in fact, lettered on sheepskin, beribboned in satin, signed by myself, and stamped for the world to gape at with the Great Seal of Maryland!"

Ebenezer's heart was too full for words.

"In the meantime," Charles went on, "I shall, if't please you, at least commission you to write the poem. Nay, better, I'll pen thee a draft of the Laureate's commission, and should God e'er grant me back my Maryland, 'twill retroact to this very day."

" 'Sheart! 'Tis past belief!"

Charles had his man fetch him paper, ink, and quill, and with the air of one accustomed to the language of authority, quickly penned the following commission:

CHARLES ABSOLUTE LORD & PROPRIETARY OF THE PROVINCES OF MARYLAND & AVALON LORD BARON OF BALTIMORE &
^t
To Our Trusty and Welbeloved Our Dear Ebenezer Cooke Esq
^r
of Cookes Poynt Dorset County Greeting Whereas it is our Desire that the Sundrie Excellencies of Our Province of Maryland aforesaid be set down in Verse for Generations to Come and Whereas it is Our Conviction that Your talents Well Equip You for that Task &
^t
We Do Will and Command you upon the Faith which You Owe unto Us that You do compose and construct such an Epical Poem, setting forth the Graciousness of Marylands Inhabitants, Their Good Breeding and Excellent Dwelling-places, the Majesty of her Laws, the Comfort of Her Inns and Ordinaries &
^t
&
^t
and to this Purpose We do Name and Entitle You Poet and Laureat of the Province of Maryland Aforesaid. Witness Ourself at the City of London the twenty-eighth Day of March in the eighteenth Year of Our Dominion over Our said Province of Maryland Annoq Dom 1694

"Out on't!" he cried, handing the finished draft to Ebenezer. " 'Tis done, and I wish you fair passage." Ebenezer read the commission, flung himself upon his knees before Lord Baltimore, and pressed that worthy's coat hem to his lips in gratitude. Then, mumbling and stumbling, he pocketed the document, excused himself, and ran from the house into the bustling streets of London.

Ebenezer Returns to His Companions, Finds

Them Fewer by One, Leaves Them Fewer

by Another, and Reflects a Reflection

"Locket's!" cried Ebenezer
to his cabman, and sprang into the hackney with a loose flail of limbs like a mismanaged marionette. With what a suddenness had he scaled the reaches of Parnassus, while his companions blundered in the foothills! Snatching out his commission, he read again the sweet word
Laureat
and the catalogue of Maryland's excellencies.

"Sweet land!" he exclaimed. "Pregnant with song! Thy deliverer approacheth!"

There was a conceit worth saving, he reflected: the word
deliverer,
for instance, with its twin suggestions of midwife and savior. . . He lamented having no pen nor any paper other than Baltimore's commission, which after kissing he tucked away in his coat.

"I must purchase me a notebook," he decided. " 'Twere a pity such wildflowers should die unplucked. No more may I think merely of my own delight, for a laureate belongs to the world."

Soon the hackney cab reached Locket's, and after rewarding the driver Ebenezer hurried to find his colleagues, whom he'd not seen since the night of the wager. Once inside, however, he assumed a slower, more dignified pace, in keeping with his position, and weaved through the crowded tables to where he spied his friends.

Dick Merriweather noticed him first. " 'Sblood!" he shouted. "Look ye yonder, what comes hither! Am I addled with the sack, or is't Lazarus untombed?"

"How now!" Tom Trent joined in. "Hath the spring wind thawed ye, boy? I feared me you was ossified for good and all."

"Thawed?" said Ben Oliver, and winked. "Nay, Tom, for how could such a lover e'er be chilled? 'Tis my guess he's only now regained his strength from his mighty joust the night of our wager and is back to take all comers."

"Lightly, Ben," reproved Tom Trent, and glanced at John McEvoy beside him, who, however, was entirely absorbed in regarding Ebenezer and seemed not to have heard the remark. " 'Tis unbecoming a good fellow, to hold a grudge o'er such a trifle."

"Nay, nay," Ben insisted. "What more pleasant or instructive, I ask you, than to hear of great deeds from the lips of their doers? Hither with thee, Ebenezer. Take a pot with us and tell us all plainly, as a man amongst men: What think you now of this Joan Toast that you did swive? How is she in the bed, I mean, and what fearsome bargain did you drive for your five guineas, that we've seen none of you this entire week, or her since? Marry, what a man!"

"Curb your evil tongue," Ebenezer said crisply, taking a seat. "You know the story as well as I."

"Hi!" cried Ben. "Such bravery! What, will you say naught by way of explanation or defense when a very trollop scorns you?"

Ebenezer shrugged. " 'Tis near as e'er she'll come to greatness."

"Great Heav'n!" Tom Trent exclaimed. "Who is this stranger with the brave replies? I know the face and I know the voice, but b'm'faith, 'tis not the Eben Cooke of old!"

"Nay," agreed Dick Merriweather, " 'tis some swaggering impostor. The Cooke I knew was e'er a shy fellow, something stiff in the joints, and no great hand at raillery. Know you aught of his whereabouts?" he asked Ebenezer.

"Aye" -- Ebenezer smiled -- "I know him well, for 'twas I alone saw him die and wrote his elegy."

"And prithee, sir, what carried him off?" inquired Ben Oliver with as much of a sneer as could be salvaged from his late confounding. "Belike 'twas the pain of unrequited love?"

"The truth of the matter is, sirs," Ebenezer replied, "he perished in childbirth the night of the wager and never learned that what he'd been suffering was the pains of labor -- the more intense, for that he'd carried the fetus since childhood and was brought to bed of't uncommon late. Howbeit, 'twas the world's good luck he had him an able midwife, who delivered full-grown the man you see before you."

"I'faith!" declared Dick Merriweather. "I have fair lost sight o' you in this Hampton Court Hedge of a conceit! Speak literally, an't please you, if only for a sentence, and lay open plainly what is signified by all this talk of death and midwives and the rest of the allegory."

"I shall," smiled Ebenezer, "but I would Joan Toast were present to hear't, inasmuch as 'twas she who played all innocently the midwife's part. Do fetch her, McEvoy, that all the world may know I bear no ill will towards either of you. Albeit you acted from malice, yet, as the proverb hath it,
Many a thing groweth in the garden, that was not planted there;
or even
A man's fortune may be made by his enviers.
Certain it is, your mischief bore fruit beyond my grandest dreams! You said of me once that I comprehend naught of life, and perchance 'tis true; but you must allow farther that
Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread,
and that
A castle may be taken by storm, that ne'er would fall to siege.
The fact is, I've wondrous news to tell. Will you summon her?"

Ever since Ebenezer's appearance in the winehouse McEvoy had sat quietly, even sullen. Now he got up from his place, growled "Summon her yourself, damn ye!" and left the tavern in a great sulk.

"What ails him?" asked Ebenezer. "The man meant me an injury -- doth it chagrin him that it misfired into fortune? 'Twas a civil request; did I know Joan's whereabouts I'd fetch her myself."

"So I doubt not would he," Ben Oliver said.

"What is't you say?"

"Did you not hear it said before," asked Tom Trent, "that nor hide nor hair of your Joan have we seen these three days past?"

"I took it for a twit," said Ebenezer. "She's gone in sooth?"

"Aye," affirmed Dick, "the tart is vanished from sight, and not McEvoy nor any soul else knows aught of't. The last anyone saw of her was the day after the wager. She was in a fearful fret --"

"I'faith," put in Ben, "there was no speaking to the woman!"

"We took it for a pout," Dick went on, "forasmuch as you'd
--
That is to say --"

"She'd scorned four guineas from a good man," Ben declared in a last effort at contempt, "and got in exchange a penceless preachment from --"

"From Ebenezer Cooke, my friends," Ebenezer finished, unable to hold back the news any longer, "who this very day hath been named by Lord Baltimore to be Poet and Laureate of the entire Province of Maryland! And you've not seen the wench since, you say?"

But none heard the question: they looked at each other and at Ebenezer.

"Egad!"

" 'Sblood!"

"Is't true? Thou'rt Laureate of Maryland?"

"Aye," said Ebenezer, who actually had said only that he'd been
named
Laureate, but deemed it too late, among other things, to clarify the misunderstanding. "I sail a few days hence for America, to manage the estate where I was born, and by command of Lord Baltimore to do the office of Laureate for the colony."

"Have you commission and all?" Tom Trent marveled.

Ebenezer did not hesitate. "The Laureate's commission is in the writing," he explained, "but already I'm commissioned to turn him a poem." He pretended to search his pockets and came up with the document in his coat, which he passed around the table to great effect.

"By Heav'n 'tis true!" Tom said reverently. "Laureate of Maryland! It staggers me!" said Dick. "I will confess," said Ben, "I'd ne'er have guessed it possible. But out on't! Here's a pot to you, Master Laureate! Hi there, barman, a pint all around! Come, Tom! Ho, Dick! Let's have a health, now! I hope I may call it," he went on, putting his arm about Ebenezer's shoulders, "for 'tis many a night Eben's taken my twitting in good grace, that would have rankled a meaner spirit. 'Twould be as fair an honor to propose this health t'you, friend, as 'twill be for me to pay for't. Prithee grant me that, and 'twere proof of a grace commensurate to thy talent."

"Your praise flatters me the more," Ebenezer said, "for that I know you -- how well! -- to be no flatterer. Toast away, and a long life to you!"

The waiter had by this time brought the pints, and the four men raised their glasses.

"Hi there, sots and poetasters!" Ben shouted to the house at large, springing up on the table. "Put by your gossip and drink as worthy a health as e'er was drunk under these rafters!"

"Nay, Ben!" Ebenezer protested, tugging Ben's coat.

"Hear!" cried several patrons, for Ben was a favorite among them.

"Drag off yon skinny fop and raise your glasses!" someone cried.

"Scramble up here," Ben ordered, and Ebenezer was lifted willy-nilly to the table top.

"To the long life, good health, and unfailing talent of Ebenezer Cooke," Ben proposed, and everyone in the room raised his glass, "who while we lesser fry spent our energies braying and strutting, sat aloof and husbanded his own, and crowed him not a crow nor, knowing himself an eagle, cared a bean what barnyard fowl thought of him; and who, therefore, while the rest of us cocks must scratch our dunghills in feeble envy, hath spread his wings and taken flight, for who can tell what eyrie! I give thee Ebenezer Cooke, lads, twitted and teased by all -- none more than myself -- who this day was made Poet and Laureate of the Province of Maryland!"

A general murmur went round the room, followed by a clamor of polite congratulation that went like wine to Ebenezer's head, for it was the first such experience in his life.

"I thank you," he said thickly to the room. "I can say no more!"

"Hear! Hear!"

"A poem, sir!" someone called.

"Aye, a poem!"

Ebenezer got hold of himself and stayed the clamor with a gesture. "Nay," he said, "the muse is no minstrel, that sings for a pot in the taverns; besides, I've not a line upon me. This is the place for a toast, not for poetry, and 'twill greatly please me do you join my toast to my magnanimous patron Baltimore --"

A few glasses went up, but not many, for antiPapist feeling was running high in London.

"To the Maryland Muse --" Ebenezer added, perceiving the small response, and got a few more hands for his trouble.

"To Poetry, fairest of the arts" -- many additional glasses were raised -- "and to every poet and good-fellow in this tavern, which for gay and gifted patrons hath not its like in the hemisphere!"

"Hear!"
the crowd saluted, and downed the toast to a man.

It was near midnight when Ebenezer returned at last to his rooms. He called in vain for Bertrand and tipsily commenced undressing, still very full of his success. But whether because of the silence of his room after Locket's, or the unhappy sight of his bed lying still unmade as he'd left it in the morning, the linens all rumpled and soiled from his four days' despair, or some more subtle agency, his gaiety seemed to leave him with his clothes; when at length he had stripped himself of shoes, drawers, shirt, and periwig, and stood shaved, shorn, and mother-naked in the center of his room, his mind was dull, his eyes listless, his stance uncertain. The great success of his first plunge still thrilled him to contemplate, but no longer was it entirely a pleasurable excitement. His stomach felt weak. All that Charles had told him of the history of Maryland came like a bad dream to his memory, and turning out the lamp he hurried to the window for fresh air.

Despite the hour, London bristled in the darkness beneath and all around him, from which came at intervals here a drunkard's shout, there a cabman's curse, the laughter of a streetwalker, the whinny of a horse. A damp spring breeze moved off the Thames and breathed on him: out there on the river, anchors were being weighed and catted, sails unfurled from yards and sheeted home, bearings taken, soundings called, and dark ships run down the tide, out the black Channel, and thence to the boundless ocean, cresting and tossing under the moon. Great restless creatures stirred and glided in the depths; pale gray sea birds wheeled and shrieked down the night wind, or wildly planed against the scud. Could one suppose that somewhere far out under the stars there really lay a Maryland, against whose long sand coasts the black sea foamed? That at that very instant, peradventure, some naked Indian prowled the reedy dunes or stalked his quarry down whispering aisles of the forest?

Ebenezer shuddered, turned from the window, and drew the curtains fast. His stomach was extremely uneasy. He lay down on the bed and tried to sleep, but with no success: the daring of his interview with Charles Calvert, and all that followed on it, kept him tossing and turning long after his muscles had begun to ache and his eyes to burn for sleep. The specters of William Claiborne, Richard Ingle, William Penn, Josias Fendall, and John Coode -- their strange and terrible energy, their intrigues and insurrections -- chilled and sickened him but refused to be driven from his awareness; and he could not give over remembering and pronouncing his title even after repetition had taken pleasure and sense from the epithet and left it a nightmare string of sounds. His saliva ran freely; he was going to be ill.
Poet and Laureate of the Province of Maryland!
There was no turning back. Out under the night, Maryland and his single mortal destiny awaited him.

"Ah, God!" he wept at last, and sprang from the bed in an icy sweat. Running to the chamber pot he flung off the lid and with a retch heaved into it the wine of his triumph. Once delivered of it, he felt somewhat calmer: he returned to the bed, clasped his knees against his chest to quiet the agitation of his stomach, and so contrived, after countless fretful sighs, a sort of sleep.